Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Turtle saving!*

*Sorry it took me so long to post! In all the turtle-saving excitement, like an idiot, I didn't think to take a picture of PE with either one of the turtles. And, since I don't have mad photo-chopping skills, it took me a while to recover from Cinco de Mayo do the photo of Teenage-Vampire-Ninja-Edward.

It would seem that I have a new purpose in life. No, I don't mean blogging about my Edward doll, but wouldn't that be great if it was? Lately, I find myself frequently having to save wayward turtles.

My theory is that this is all due to last week's flood. These poor turtles were probably pretty happy just sitting in their turtle homes watching reruns of Bugs Bunny when the water came up and floated them off to parts unknown. Suddenly, they find themselves in the middle of the street, which resembled a river a few hours before.

Let me tell you, the force of the flood waters must have been something else because we're not talking small box turtles here! These are big honkin' SNAPPING turtles! (Did I mention SNAPPING? You'd think they would be more appreciative of being saved from the menu of the local Road Kill Cafe. Anyway....)

My friend (yes, the same one from the "my-husband-likes-to-play-with-PE kidnapping case") and I were driving back to her house last weekend. She lives in an awesome neighborhood (that I'm completely jealous of) that is covered in lakes and nature trails. The lakes did overflow into the streets near the subdivision entrance, but had now receded. So, here we were, driving with the windows down rockin' out to whatever my iPod was blasting.

Me (changing lanes to avoid the reptilian speed bump): "Whoa! That was a huge turtle!"

Future-Twitarded Friend (I'm working on converting her. Story to be posted soon): "Wow! Can we turn around and do something before he gets squished?"

Me: "Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. I'll turn around at the next median opening. Geez! How long is this median?!"

FTF: "I know! Usually they're every few feet. WTF?"

Me: "Finally! Hold on. I'm going to go as fast as 105 hp will take me."

I haul butt back the other direction to the next street crossing and almost run over the damn thing myself. I didn't realize that the turtle was sitting at the intersection, over-looking that useful piece of information the first time because I was too busy trying to miss hitting him to begin with. FTF picks up the turtle (let's call him Yertle, shall we?) and we decide to run him down to the lake near her house.

Yertle and FTF

I put on my hazards and she jumps out and places him on the grass next to the lake. Yay us! Warm fuzzies for everyone! We saved a turtle from becoming Hummer/vulture fodder!

Fast forward to Tuesday at work. I stepped outside of our building and there, staring up at me in the parking lot, is another turtle. I can't for the life of me even begin to figure out where this guy came from. But here he stood on the HOT pavement (it was about 90 degrees outside) in the bright sun. Where to put him... where to put him.... Damn, there's no place near water! How the heck did this turtle get here?!

It was then that I remembered that the guy who owned the building behind mine had just built a dirt bike course (Really!) in the land behind his building. SIDE: I work in the sticks, y'all. People out there do random things, like, build dirt bike courses in their backyards. They would do it in their front yards, but there are usually 5 broken down cars and possibly a toilet already occupying that space. When he built the track, he put in a retention pond. Thankfully, due to the abundance of recent rain water, it was full. I pick up the turtle-du-jour and walk the long driveway down to that building. The owner is in the back part of the building/warehouse working on, what else, a dirt bike.

As I start to ask the guy if Mr. Turtle can take up residency in his fenced-off track, Mr. Turtle decides he's had enough of being carried around. He sticks out his head, HISSES at me and starts flailing his arms and legs (with long claws) around. I almost dropped him! His claws were so long that there was almost no way to hold on to him and not have him dig into my fingers. It'd be my luck he'd be carrying turtle-flu or something. The building owner quickly hurries out to the gate of the fence and unlocks it. I hurry after him and set Mr. Turtle down by the lake.

So, that's two turtles in one week. I'm really hoping the flooding is over for a while. I'd hate to think what the next flood might displace! I'm NOT picking up and moving an alligator. Someone can just run over it. Besides, that's good eatin'!